O/T - red tape for rugby star.

Now isn't this a fine example of red tape .
Some rugby player from Cardiff (he is probably quite well known in rugby stuff) had his passport chewed up by his dog the day before a trip to play a game in France ... yep France , a neighbour and close partner.
you can still see him in the pic and im sure his identity could be verified in another way somehow , afterall a passport is only identity nothing much more its not a magical piece of plaggy.

Anyway he missed the game as he had to stay in the UK , to me this is a bit stupid.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-20990965

 

That's almost as daft as the one the other day where a South African born player, who played 8 times for England and sustained a career ending injury whilst playing for England, had his visa cancelled when his employment was terminted by his UK club side.

Seems to have been a bit of sense shown by UK Border Agency since though.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/rugby-union/20956641

 

Translated: "The media jumped the gun and sensationalised a non-story when in fact no moves had actually been made to get him out of the country."

 

No, you need a passport for France I believe it's just Ireland who we have a common travel agreement with that may accept a driving licence if flying in.

 

This, I don't know for certain, but I would imagine the visas/work permits in rugby work the same way as the work permits do for footballers. They're granted for the duration of the contract, and when the contract is ended the visa is cancelled. If a player signs for say Villa on a 5 year contract, and then a year later we sign him from them on a 3 year contract we have to apply for a new permit because the existing one isn't valid for him playing for us even though the contract is actually shorter than the one he already has.

I think you're right about it just being Ireland. Although on a similar theme we had a work's trip to Belfast for a job in the summer. One of the girls that went with us hadn't been before so we decided to wind her up at the ferry port by saying she needed her passport. She was sure it was a wind up when the first of us asked her, but you saw the moment of panic when one of us jumped out the other van and said how they'd just had a panic thinking they'd forgotten their passport.

 

You definitely need a pasport to get to France and certainly do to get back into the UK - a driving licence is not a document of identity (certainly as far as Border Control is concerned)

It seems though that Brits using the ferries and Eurotunnel have been allowed in and out of the country on their driving licences as ID if they've forgotten their passports whilst countries within mainland Europe (such as Belgium Holland Germany) have an agrement where their ID cards suffice. We don't have ID cards and are not part of this Schengen arrangement

 

Maybe he shouldn't have let his dog eat his passport

Poor excuse and never worked with my homework at school

 

On my last job I worked all round Britain, Channel Islands and the Republic of Ireland. We used to use hire vans and cars to get around in, arranged by the office. Whenever we had to use the Ferries or fly anywhere it was done as a block booking, we sometimes had between 30/40 people on the teams. Our works I.D. had our photos on and we could use them to get through to R.O.I and C.I'.s ok, a lot of the time we wasn't even asked to show them.

I always thought it was a major lapse in security.

 

Nope, we have been on one or two of these booze cruises to France and you have to have your passport. In fact if you forget it the bloody passport authorities over here cancel your passport and you have to re-apply for one with all the added expense.Also if you fly you have to produce it at checkin, even if flying within the UK.